Watching CO2 levels

I just came across the rather disturbing chart below showing CO2 levels in the atmosphere at CO2NOw, and a link to a widget showing current CO2 levels - see above. (350ppm is considered to be the ’safe’ level by the way).

Published by Michael McGee, a government worker in Canada, who makes no claims about being an expert, he has though put together an outline plan of how to solve global warming. As a plan, it’s one of the simplest to understand that I have come across.

To summarise he says:

1. Face Atmospheric Reality

2. We need a science-based target for safe levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

3. We need to see the effort to get to Safe CO2 as universally urgent

4. We need a milestone target for Peak CO2

5. We need to rewire the world economy with alternative energy and get our emissions as close to zero as possible

6. Unleash human ingenuity everywhere

7. Prepare for some of earth’s biggest parties (because it’ll require co-operation on a global level)

8. Repeat for the other greenhouse gases

More on the data:

The world’s most current data for atmospheric CO2 comes from measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. These high-precision measurements were started by Dave Keeling in March 1958, now published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within a week after each month ends. Measurements are taken with high precision instruments at a remote location where CO2 is well mixed in the atmosphere, more than two miles above sea level.

The data shown here is a link to the heart of the global warming problem and the key to the solution. The data is not processed or adjusted. There is practically no time delay. There are no words and no spin doctors between you and what is happening in the atmosphere. Pure and simple, the data is an objective measurement of atmospheric reality, virtually in real time.

When CO2 is rising in the atmosphere, we can expect global warming and climate change trends to worsen. When CO2 stabilizes and declines, we will know that humanity is actually on track to solve the related problems of global warming and climate change. It is not enough for the data to be speaking, we need to pay attention, and know what is going on.

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This entry was written by Nigel and posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 3:15 pm and filed under Green heros, Co2 emissions, Climate change. Bookmark the permalink. You can follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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